Pedro Almodóvar continues to write the pages of Spanish cinema. Now he does so from the Venice Film Festival, where the director has won a historic Golden Lion for The room next doorIt is the first time that a Spanish film has achieved this, although not the first filmmaker to do so. Luis Buñuel achieved it with Beautiful day, produced in France. It is the culmination of a career where awards are no longer the main thing, although they always feel good. The icing on the cake for a revolutionary film, which now, from a more sober and austere perspective, continues to excite the whole world.
Pedro Almodóvar: “The far right wants to turn migrant minors into invaders. It’s stupid and unfair”
In fact, it is curious that Almodóvar did not win the big prize at the two major international festivals. At Cannes he came close to winning it several times (Best Director for All about my mother, and Best Screenplay and award for the actresses of Return)In Venice he was given a Golden Lion, but an honorary one, and here his international career began thanks to the award for best screenplay Women on the verge of a nervous breakdownNow he is once again being hailed as one of the most successful English-language films of all time, a moving and austere drama about dignified death and female friendship.
Almodóvar convinced critics and also demonstrated the importance of filmmakers taking a political stance. He did so at the press conference for the film, when he criticised the attitude of the extreme right towards migrant children. He repeated it again when he collected the Golden Lion. In tears, he dedicated it first to his family, and then to his two actresses, Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. “As a director, one of the privileges is that we are the first witness when a miracle happens on screen, and both Tilda and Julianne have summoned a miracle many days of this shoot, and I will never have enough words of gratitude. This award is for you,” he said.
But the ovation came when he again stressed the political issue of The room next door, a film about “a woman dying in a dying world.” “The film not only speaks of the boundless solidarity of Julianne’s character, but also of Tilda’s decision to end her life when it only offers her pain. Saying goodbye to this world in a clean and dignified manner is a human issue, not a political one, and it must be addressed from a human perspective. I know that this right is an attack on any religion that has God as the only source of life. I would ask practitioners to respect and not intervene in individual decisions in this regard. Human beings must be free to be born and to die when life is insufficient,” she added.
She beat those who until the last moment had been placed by everyone as the big favorites. The first, The brutalistan impressive and overwhelming chronicle of capitalism and a slap in the face to the American dream, won the Best Director award for Brady Corbet, who with his third film is positioned as one of the most important filmmakers on the current scene. The other, Georgian Dea Kulumbegashvili, had to settle for the jury prize. by April, her terrifying portrayal of abortion and violence against women. A radical proposal that may have divided the jury.
The surprise came from the hand of the Italian director Maura Delpero, who with her second film, Vermilion, won the second most important prize, the Silver Lion, Grand Jury Prize. A delicate and intimate portrait of a family in the years after the Second World War, focusing on its women. A prodigy of sensitivity and staging that also won the hearts of the jury.
Almodóvar’s film is philosophical and made us think about what it means to be alive, in your life, but also in the decision of how to end your life.
Isabelle Huppert — President of the Venice Jury
The acting awards had many candidates, especially for the female category, where Nicole Kidman finally took home the Volpi Cup for her risky work in Babygirl, Halina Reijn’s film that asks whether a sexual fantasy of domination can be feminist. The Australian actress – who was unable to attend the gala due to the death of her mother – gives her all, and even dares to laugh at herself, and the jury has recognized this above other works such as Angelina Jolie’s in Mariaor that of Fernanda Torres, in the film by Walter Salles I’m still here, about a mother in the Brazilian dictatorship. The film by the Brazilian director, a favorite of critics, won the award for best screenplay for Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega.
There was more surprise in the award for best actor, as neither of the two favourites, Daniel Craig and Adrien Brody, took home the prize. It went to Frenchman Vincent Lindon, one of the best European actors who once again demonstrates his talent in Play with firea film that warns about the rise of the extreme right. Lindon plays a left-wing working-class father who sees one of his sons start to frequent neo-Nazi groups. When presenting an award, he joked that for the first time a French president, referring to Huppert, had been fair to an actor from her country.
Huppert later acknowledged that the decision was not unanimous. “It wasn’t, but we were in agreement. Obviously we liked the film. It talks about important issues that touch us, and it does so with life, with a sense of life, of transmission, it considers the end of life as a movement. Something stops and something moves, I think the film is philosophical in that sense, and it made us think about what it means to be alive, in your life, but also in the decision of how to end your life. We also loved the two actresses, they are wonderful. The film is never sentimental, it is not melodramatic. Almodóvar has the talent to keep his distance from his subject, so for those reasons we have awarded it,” said Huppert.
Golden Lion: The room next doorby Pedro Almodovar
Silver Lion, Grand Jury Prize: Vermilion, by Maura Delpero
Silver Lion, Best Director: Brady Corbet, for The brutalist
Special Jury Awards: April, de Dea Kulumbegashvili
Best Screenplay: Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, for I’m still here
Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Nicole Kidman, for Babygirl
Volpi Cup for Best Actor: Vincent Lindon, for Play with fire
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor: Paul Kircher, for Their children after them
